My Own Thanksgiving Twist

I was listening to the story of Thanksgiving on AM Radio and it occurred to me how strange/funny/fateful life could be.

Here was a group of people who, because of fate, fled their homeland to start anew in a strange new world. They didn't know a darn thing about how to survive there and with the onset of winter, out of 110 of the Pilgrims, only 50 were alive. So they prayed for help.

Out of the woods came an Native American. What are the odds that this particular man would walk out and be a savior to these people?

Yet, this stranger came strolling out, like a deux-ex-machina flag in a bad tv episode, and...he spoke ENGLISH. He spoke perfect English, in fact. He taught the Pilgrims how to harvest maple from the trees and grow Indian corn; he single-handedly saved the last 50 pilgrims from starvation.

Of course, my curiosity grew as I listened to this story. Who was this native American? And how did he get to know English, of all things? What are the odds of an ENGLISH-speaking Native American coming out of the woods?

His name was Squanto, and it turned out that he was the only left of his tribe. He had been sold as a slave in England and had, during his travels, came to be with a monks and learned to speak English through them. He had returned to the New World to find his whole tribe extinguished.

A very sad story here but...what are the odds of a native boy who, because he had been enslaved, survived a whole tribe's massacre, learned English, and then returned to his homeland, and not only that, he played a role in saving another group of people (a tribe, yes?) from going extinct too? This story is getting more and more layered, isn't it?

The Thanksgiving story can be looked at from so many different angles. From the religious side, you have the Pilgrims praying to God. A man literally showed up on their doorstep--a strange man, who should be their enemy, yet he spoke English. He saved their lives. To the Pilgrims, their prayers were answered.

From Squanto's point of view, he found meaning in his whole existence. If we were to write his story from his viewpoint up to the moment he walked out of the woods, what would it be like? A man tested? A man alone, certainly, and if he were a thinking man, and I will be romantic and say he probably was because he studied under monks, he would be asking many existential questions. And imagine the revelation dawning in his mind when he came face-to-face with 50 starving foreigners, all speaking ENGLISH, needing his help. His enslavement, with the torture and pain of the loss of freedom, his being taken away from his own people, his returning home and finding nothing...and it would appear, walking out of the woods and coming upon these poor pilgrims, that he was chosen for that moment and that purpose. Ah, fate, huh?

Let me tell you about a strange twist of fate. I have not used my name Gennita for 18 years before I sold my first book. Outside of family and a few personal friends, everyone knew me as Jenny or Jenna or Jenn. I was even JLow before there was a JLo ;-). I don't use Gennita because it was an odd name and nobody could remember it in college, and even before that, the schoolboys liked to tease my name, spelling it with the obvious sexual connotation.

It never "bothered" bothered me. It was just an inconvenience to have to spell my name out over the phone, to new teachers, to hospital employees, that kind of thing. Besides, I felt Gennita was so exotic...being penniless didn't make me feel exotic, for some reason, LOL. At the lowest point of my life, I decided that I was going to simplify my life.

So I shortened my name. Plain Jenny Low. Until 2002, that is. I sold Into Danger and my new editor, Gena Pearson, told me Avon Marketing didn't want to use Jenny Low as the new suspense writer. Do I have another name?

I hesitated. "Ummm...yeah," I said, over the phone.

"What is it?" she asked. "Can we use it? It's got to be more exotic than Jenny. We could use a pseudonym, if you like. What's your real name?"

"Gennita," I mumbled, thinking of how Avon is going to scream AHAHAHAHHAHA! Not that name! It's a horrible name!

"What?" A long pause. "That's your name?"

You see? She hates it already. "Gennita," I repeated, "but we don't have to use that if you don't like it. Really, it's okay if you hate it."

"I don't hate it." She laughed. "I was just shocked, that's all. It's not a name I expected to hear. You see, that's my name."

It was my turn to be shocked. "What?"

"My name's Genitta Pearson. It's easier to call me Gena."

"Oh my God."

"Yeah."

And after decades of having a name that didn't seem to fit, after years of wondering why Gennita, and after years of shortening my name to its smallest denominator, my book was bought by another Genitta. What are the odds of that? We both had never met another Gennita/Genitta. And of course, it all made sense--EVERYTHING made sense--at that very moment.

What are the odds of, after a few dozen rejections, a woman strolling out from behind all the queries and editor appointments to read my book, loving it and buying it, and her name turning out to be Gennita too? And the odds of me seeing Gennita Low on my book cover?

Fate is a very strange thing, ne ce pas? Here's me sticking my tongue out at those nasty schoolboys.

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